


Tripartite

by aurumstar (shieldivarius)



Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Female Azem, It turned sad because I can't write anything else, Multi, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Prompt Fill, Slice of Life, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, shoebill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/aurumstar
Summary: “What great offence has she given the Convocation this time?”“As though you, her greatest enabler, are unaware.”Hythlodaeus looked up at that, lips parted and other hand flat to his chest in mock-outrage. “Greatest? Hardly, Hades,” he said. “Certainly I help her with her work, but she relies on you to smooth it all over with your peers. Avails herself of your limited goodwill, I daresay.”Fill for the FFXIVwrite 2020 prompt "avail."
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Hythlodaeus
Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916263
Kudos: 20
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge





	Tripartite

**Author's Note:**

> This references the Tales from the Shadows story "Ere Our Curtain Falls." I was hoping for a prompt word that would let me indulge in my ot3 nonsense and I got it!

“She’s a menace!” 

Emet-Selch let the apartment door swing behind him, ignored the breath of aether that brushed past him to catch it and ease it closed before it could hit the jamb, but glared at the man in the sitting room who had stopped the slamming from announcing his irritation to their neighbours. Frustration prickled through him; he could feel it in the hot aether looking for an outlet in his hands.

“You adore her,” Hythlodaeus said without even looking up from the folio on his lap. 

Emet-Selch scowled and doffed his mask, threw down his cowl.

“She’s a bleeding heart.”

“I’d have her all to myself if she wasn’t. Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot explain, her affections extend to you.”

He snorted, more indignation than amusement. “I was here first.” 

“The how of it, a mystery for the ages.”

Emet-Selch took in a sharp breath through his nose and blew it back out in a long stream through his lips. The irritation started to abate, Hythlo’s voice calm and his soul colour quiet and familiar in the apartment. His shoulders sunk, tension leaving them, and, pads of his fingers pressed to his forehead, he crossed to the sofa and dropped down next to Hythlodaeus.

The other man didn’t move, and Emet-Selch leaned over to glance at the paperwork he perused, blocking the light and casting a shadow over the pages as he did. 

Hythlo cleared his throat and motioned him back, but rested a hand between Emet-Selch’s shoulder blades, his arm along the back of the couch in half an embrace. His soul whispered a tentative touch against Emet-Selch's own, and he accepted with with a sigh, let the edges of their aethers merge. “What great offence has she given the Convocation this time?”

“As though you, her greatest enabler, are unaware.”

Hythlodaeus looked up at that, lips parted and other hand flat to his chest in mock-outrage. “Greatest? Hardly, Hades,” he said. “Certainly I help her with her work, but she relies on you to smooth it all over with your peers. Avails herself of your limited goodwill, I daresay.”

“I happen to possess a great deal of goodwill,” he said. And if he sounded irritated when he said it… Well, he hardly needed to be needled by one partner when he was already exasperated by the other off gallivanting around with no care and relying on him to inevitably bring enough of the Convocation to her side to ease the inevitable vote against her.

“As you say.” Hythlo’s voice was jovial, laughing at him. “I trust her to know precisely how far she can push you.”

“Three powerful professionals and I’m the only mature one in this relationship,” he groused. He let his head fall back and Hythlo’s hand shifted up. He pressed strong fingers into the tightness of the muscles at the back of Emet-Selch’s neck. He sighed, stared directly up at the ceiling and let the other man’s hand work, finally let his eyes drift closed as the tension released.

He’d fallen into a half doze when Hythlodaeus spoke again. “Is this offence, which I am of course uninformed about, like to keep her away a while?” He sounded wistful. 

He opened his eyes, turned enough to see Hythlo’s attention on the door again, as though expecting her to walk through any moment. Azem’s schedule had long been out of his—out of _anyone_ ’s—hands. She’d been gone more often than not since the troubles had started overseas, and though she appeared in Amaurot for the occasional meeting—today’s being case in point—more and more frequently did she depart again the same day. 

He shrugged.

Hythlodaeus sighed. “Of course.”

“She seems tired,” Emet-Selch offered. “Unceasingly vexing the Convocation appears to be a taxing hobby.”

His continual ragging earned him an unimpressed look, and he sighed.

“She isn’t entangled in something you’ll be unable to help her out of?” Concern, now, and either Azem genuinely hadn’t asked him for aid this time or she’d downplayed the dangers. Either way, Emet-Selch groaned and sat up. He could _feel_ the muscles of his neck tightening right up again. The woman would be the death of him.

With a thought and a twist of aether, a bird popped into existence on the table in front of them. It looked at the two of them from beneath a furrowed brow, all-but glaring down its long beak, and ruffled its feathers after a moment. Unconcerned and aloof, demanding to know why it had been created.

Hythlodaeus glanced at him. “Hades, what…?”

Emet-Selch snapped his fingers and the bird launched into the air and then disappeared into the aether, a manifestation of his irritation dispatched to chase down Azem. Then he sunk back down into the plushness of the sofa cushions, folded his arms across his chest and waited.

“She certainly isn’t going to come home if she feels _summoned_.”

“She’ll come.”

Hythlodaeus sighed and shook his head. “If you and she are feuding, I would appreciate your not pulling me into it.”

“She’ll come,” he repeated.

Eventually, Hythlodaeus rose from the sitting room and trudged off to bed, leaving the concept drawings he’d been looking over on the table where Emet-Selch’s bird emissary had popped into being. He remained awake, stared into the low burning fire in the grate on the far wall, and waited.

Two hours later, when Hythlodaeus reappeared to pull him into bed, he went—though he gave the foyer a long look on his way past, as though he’d dozed off and she could have arrived without his realizing.

Two hours after that, Azem came home. 

He’d barely grouched out a tired, “I told you so,” before she was warming her frigid feet on his shins while he clenched his teeth and bore it. Then she climbed over the both of them to get to the other side of the bed and curl into Hythlo’s back. 

“Menace,” he muttered. A soft huff of laughter came from her side of the bed.

 _Feuding,_ indeed.

But they hadn’t been. Not then. Not really. Small spats over her recklessness, as had coloured their relationship the whole time they’d known each other. But not feuding. Not in comparison to everything to come. 

Everything was small and insignificant in comparison with everything to come.

**Author's Note:**

> avail: help or benefit; use or take advantage of


End file.
